Most Pumpkins Sold in America Are Never Eaten

Walk into any grocery store or farm stand in October, and you'll see mountains of bright orange pumpkins. But here's the thing—most of those pumpkins will never see the inside of an oven. Roughly 80-90% of pumpkins sold in the United States are purchased purely for decoration.

That's right. The overwhelming majority of America's pumpkin harvest exists to sit on porches, get carved into jack-o'-lanterns, and eventually rot in compost bins.

Two Very Different Pumpkins

The pumpkins you see piled up at the store aren't even the same variety used for pumpkin pie. Decorative pumpkins—the classic orange jack-o'-lantern types—are bred for size, shape, and that perfect orange color. They have thin walls, stringy flesh, and honestly taste pretty bland.

Pie pumpkins (also called sugar pumpkins) are smaller, denser, and sweeter. But here's where it gets really interesting: most canned "pumpkin" isn't even pumpkin at all. It's typically made from varieties of winter squash like Dickinson squash, which Libby's—the company that produces about 85% of canned pumpkin—has been growing for decades.

The Numbers Are Staggering

The United States grows around 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins annually. Illinois alone produces roughly 80% of the country's pie pumpkin crop, mostly destined for Libby's processing plants. But the decorative pumpkin industry? That's spread across the nation, with major production in California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

• Americans spend over $600 million on pumpkins each fall
• The average jack-o'-lantern pumpkin costs $3-5
• Most carved pumpkins last only 5-10 days before rotting
• Less than 20% of purchased pumpkins are ever cooked or eaten

A Peculiarly American Obsession

This decorative pumpkin phenomenon is largely an American quirk. While pumpkins are eaten worldwide—in soups, curries, stews, and desserts—no other country turns them into a multi-hundred-million-dollar decoration industry.

The tradition traces back to Irish immigrants who brought the custom of carving vegetables for Halloween. In Ireland, they used turnips. In America, they found pumpkins—bigger, easier to carve, and abundantly available come autumn.

Today, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and the ritual of selecting the perfect pumpkin have become essential fall activities for millions of American families. Instagram and Pinterest have only amplified the decorative pumpkin's importance, with elaborate porch displays becoming a competitive suburban art form.

The Waste Problem

All those decorative pumpkins create a significant waste issue. After Halloween, an estimated 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins end up in landfills each year. There, they decompose and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Some communities have responded with pumpkin composting programs and "pumpkin smashes" where jack-o'-lanterns are collected for agricultural use. Farmers use them as livestock feed—pigs and cattle love them—while others till them into soil as natural fertilizer.

So the next time you're picking out the perfect pumpkin for your front porch, remember: you're participating in a uniquely American tradition where the vast majority of a food crop is grown specifically to look pretty and then be thrown away. It's wasteful, it's weird, and it's wonderfully, quintessentially American.